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Landesa Featured in New York Times and More

Landesa has been in the news quite a bit lately. The latest New York Times “Fixes” column is a good primer on the problem of landlessness. It shines a spotlight on both its founder Roy Prosterman and Skoll Awardee Tim Hanstad as leading thinkers in the field. The column introduces Landesa’s micro-plot work and highlights the potential for micro-plots to do much good for the landless rural poor around the world.

An excerpt from “Fixes”:

“Today, political forces are arrayed against land reform. India, for example, had a land reform program since the 1960s that set ceilings on land ownership. The government could expropriate anything above the ceiling; compensation was typically well below market value. But the law was put to wide use only in the few states with Communist governments. ‘With very small exceptions, the ceiling surplus approach was not going anywhere because people who owned the land and stood to lose were much more politically powerful than those who were going to gain,’ said Tim Hanstad, the president and chief executive of Landesa.”

Earlier, Bloomberg News ran a feature on land rights for women in Kenya. We’ve posted the video above. The story draws on insights from Landesa’s field work, and spotlights key issues.

The Context China web site did a nice salute to Prosterman and the great work of Landesa’s China team.

Landesa’s new Women and Land Issue Brief examines the benefits and barriers to women’s land ownership and provides examples of some promising programs that helped women gain more secure land rights.

Finally, a new photo essay spotlights one impact of Landesa’s Justice Project in Kenya—newly elected female tribal elders. These 14 women are the first tribal elders to be elected by their rural community in memory.